No one left behind?

The place of non-combatant evacuation operations in international law

Abstract

States often have to arrange for the evacuation of their citizens endangered abroad. For example, Hungary has been involved in such operations to, carrying out five evacuations in the last few years. Despite this, the subject has received minimal attention in the Hungarian literature.
In this study, a subtype of evacuation operations, the non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO), was analysed in detail. These operations, although unknown in the Hungarian literature, are receiving increasing attention abroad. Nevertheless, no exhaustive attempt has yet been made to define them and to place them in international law. Thus, the two main objectives of this study were to define NEOs and to explore the relationship of these operations with international law.
In the first part of the study, after a detailed analysis of the known state and literature definitions, a working definition is established, describing the basic characteristics of the non-combatant evacuation operations and providing a way to distinguish them from other concepts (e.g. humanitarian intervention). The second part of the paper explores the place of NEOs in international law through a dogmatic analysis. To this end, the main legal issues of the protection of nationals abroad are presented and answered. The main conclusion of the study is that NEOs do not constitute a separate legal institution. They are a type of operation, in relation to which several legally relevant issues can be identified.